Police in Thailand are looking for a serial scammer who has apparently married at least eight men in the last two years, disappearing from their lives completely right after collecting the dowry money from their families. The real-life “runaway bride”, 32-year-old Jariyaporn “Nammon” Buayai, had apparently been called out as a scammer on social media a long time ago, but she only appeared on the radar of law enforcement a few days ago, after one of her victims filed a formal complaint against her. Prasarn Tiamyam, 32, claims that he recently saw a Facebook post warning Thai men to stay away from Nammon, and recognized her as the woman he married two years ago, after she told him she had gotten pregnant. She had disappeared days after the wedding, with a dowry of THB 200,000 ($6,000) and never came back. Read More »

Even in a highly creative environment, work at the office can get pretty stressful, so a digital advertising agency in Bangkok, Thailand is encouraging staff to bring their pets, especially dogs, to work, to help them relax. Walking into the Bangkok headquarters of Adyim, a successful digital marketing firm, it’s not uncommon to see young employees holding small dogs in their laps, stroking them with one hand and operating their computer mouse with the other, or even pooches playing on the table during an office meeting. In fact, company manager, Anankanat Kongphanich, encourages staff to bring their pets too work as often as possible, let them run around, and play with them whenever they have free time. Read More »

Thai women looking to date a walking ATM machine, but with no clue on how to catch one, can now rely on the services of “Madam Raya”, a seduction expert who claims to have dated 5,000 wealthy men. She is offering online course to help like-minded women bag the rich foreigner of their dreams. 24-year-old Praiya Suriya has been advising other Thai women in the art of seduction for four years now, via her popular Facebook page. She specializes in rich foreigners, and claims to have dated 5,000 of them, which, at her age is definitely an impressive achievement. Suriya recently made news headlines in Thailand after announcing a series of paid online courses that are 100% guaranteed to help takers find the perfect sugar daddy and teach them how to deal with them in order to get their hands on huge sums of money and expensive presents. Read More »

Sila Sutharat, a roasted chicken street vendor from Phetchaburi, Thailand, has come up with an ingenious way of cooking chicken. Instead of an oven or a charcoal barbecue, he uses 1,000 mobile mirrors that concentrate sunlight into a strong beam. He basically cooks meat with over 300 degrees Celsius of natural sunlight. Like most other street vendors, Sila used to cook his chicken over a charcoal fire, but that all changed in 1997, when a mundane observation gave him a brilliant idea. One day, he was hit by the sunlight reflected off the window of a passing bus, and he felt its heat. “I could possibly change it into energy,” Sila told himself, and started working on a contraption to capture the sunlight and use it to cook his chicken. Read More »

The gynecology ward at the Nong Krot Hospital, in Thailand’s Kamphaeng Phet province, looked more like a masked ball hall a couple of days ago, as both patients and staff wore masks to conceal their faces. The initiative was meant to make women more comfortable about getting a pap smear test. Named after its inventor, Greek doctor Giorgios Papanikolaou, the pap smear is a medical test that can detect abnormal cells that have the potential to cause cervical cancer. It involves collecting cells with a small brush from the cervix, a procedure that many Thai women apparently find so embarrassing that they would rather risk their lives to avoid. So to make it more comfortable for them, the Sa Kaew sub-district office and the Nong Krot Hospital came up with an unconventional solution – providing masks to both patients and staff. Read More »

A bizarre beauty craze has been sweeping Thailand for the last 5 years, with women spending thousands of dollars to have their upper lip reshaped as buffalo horns. Known as “krachap lips”, the cosmetic procedure is apparently only popular in Thailand. Named after the water chestnut or buffalo nut – known as krachap in Thailand – because of its shape, which resembles a buffalo head or a flying bat, the controversial cosmetic procedure has become increasingly popular among young women over the last four or five years. It’s unclear how the trend began, but posts on the plastic surgery internet forum Dungdong reveal that people had been talking about the bow-like upper lip shape as early as 2009, in a desire to copy the look of actress Patcharapa “Aum” Chaichua. But it’s been getting worse in the last couple of years and plastic surgeons are desperate to stop it. Read More »

If you’re a dog lover visiting Bangkok, you simply must stop by the True Love Café, a wonderful place where you can get a taste of Thai cuisine, or enjoy some refreshments in the company of dozens of adorable huskies. The True Love Café opened in 2013, when Chotiros Ratanabirabongse, Paw for short, a long-time husky breeder, decided to convert his farm into a place where people could interact and learn more about this wonderful canine breed. The place instantly became a hit with tourists, and today it is one of Bangkok’s most popular attractions. Read More »

Woralop, a 44-year-old homeless man from Thailand, only had nine baht (¢25) to his name when he found a Hermes leather wallet with 20,000 baht ($579USD) and several credit cards. It was more than enough to buy him food and even a place to stay for weeks, maybe months, but he chose to return it. The kind gesture would soon prove to be life-changing. You’ve probably been asked what you would do if you found a wallet full of cash, at least once in your life. Would you keep, it, turn it in to the police, ask for a reward? This question always tests a person’s moral values, but for someone who has hit rock bottom, the answer seems pretty clear. And yet Woralop claims he didn’t even think about keeping the wallet, and even ran after the owner to return it, after seeing him dropping it by mistake. He couldn’t catch up with the man, but he went straight to the nearest police station to hand it over. Read More »

A man from the Thai province of Ayutthaya was arrested last month and charged with possession of drugs and intent to distribute, after he allegedly gave away over 200,000 methamphetamine pills to friends who were down on their luck. But this isn’t your average drug dealer news story… Police in Ayutthaya started an investigation last month, after the of meth on the black marketed plummeted from $8 to $3 a pill in a very short amount of time. There was no logical explanation for the sudden price drop until they heard about a local man giving away large quantities of pills totally free of charge. It was an unlikely story, but the tips checked out and when they finally apprehended 41-year old Prachaub Kanpecth, he admitted to being in possession of over 500,000 meth pills known as “ya ba” or “crazy drug”, which police estimate are worth around $6 million. That’s the kind of stash you expect to find when busting a drug lord, but Kanpecth was a simple forager making a living by digging through trash and collecting forest honey. He told officers that he came into possession of the drugs by accident, after seeing a group of men getting out of a pickup truck and leaving a big package in the shrubbery on the side of a road. So he just took it and then started giving the pills away for free to his cash-strapped friends. They started selling it at abnormally low prices either to make some pocket money or pay off debts and accidentally brought down black market prices. Read More »

Three Thai students caught cheating during a medical college entrance exams made headlines this week for their elaborate high-tech cheating equipment. Supervisors discovered wireless cameras embedded in the frames of the students’ glasses which were connected to smartwatches on their wrists. They used the cameras to send images of questions to an external group, who then replied with the answers via the smartwatches. That’s quite a clever setup, but sadly, the students were caught when instructors noticed that their glasses had unusually thick frames and decided to have a closer look, which led to the discovery of the hidden cameras. The story went viral on social media after Rangsit University director Arthit Ourairat posted pictures of the cheating equipment on his Facebook page. Read More »

A creepy new trend in Thailand has people caring for supposedly haunted dolls, for good luck and prosperity. The Look Thep (Child God) dolls are believed to be inhabited by children’s spirits, created through special rituals. They’re considered to be an updated version of the ancient kuman thong, the practice of worshiping human fetuses that died in the womb. Look Thep allows people to revere the spirits of children without having to actually obtain dead fetuses. Several locals, including Thai celebrities, are vouching for the effectiveness of Look Thep dolls. Like DJ Bookkoh Thannatchayapan from 94 FM, who claims that his doll Wansai has made him successful in show biz. “The first day I got him, I took him out shopping for clothes in the baby section,” Bookkoh said. “Right after I paid for his clothes, I got a call that my canceled job was back on!” Read More »

Almost half a century after Thai beauty queen Apsara Hongsakula was crowned Miss Universe, she is back in the news for her astonishingly youthful looks. The 67-year-old doesn’t appear a day over 35, and her recent photographs have been causing quite stir on the internet!

Born in 1947, Apsara was only 18 when she won the most coveted beauty pageant title in the world. However she chose to step out of the limelight soon after, and most people had forgotten about her. But when a recent photograph of her surfaced online last week, people were amazed at how little she had aged since she was last seen in 1965.

Read More »

Ban Hun Lek is a Thai scrap metal art company that makes amazing pop culture sculptures from discarded auto parts. One of their best works is this Incredible Hulk statue made almost entirely out of rusty old nuts and bolts.

According to the brand’s website, Ban Hun Lek is a family-run business, specializing in hand-made scrap metal art that’s created piece-by-piece from used auto parts that have no value. “Bolts, nuts, screws, spark plugs, and other used auto parts have been re-created by our skillful welders with just a normal electric welding technique,” they wrote. “These art would make great gifts, and are great for collection and decoration.”

Read More »

From the outside, this four-storey, roofless, dilapidated structure located on a busy Bangkok intersection looks pretty much worthless. But the ruins of the once-vibrant New World Mall now house a different world within its crumbling walls – a unique indoor pond full of exotic fish.

Constructed in 1982 by the Kaew Fah Plaza Company, the 11-storey New World Mall enjoyed a brief period of success. It was shut down just 15 years later in 1997, when the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) realized that the owner had obtained permission to construct only four storeys. Seven upper levels were destroyed, and a subsequent fire in 1999 left the mall roofless.

Without a roof, rainwater filled the basement and this pool of stagnant water soon became a breeding place for mosquitoes. Annoyed, the vendors in the neighborhood got together and released a few fish into the water, to get rid of the pesky mosquitoes. The fish multiplied quickly, and soon the building became home to a 500-square-meter miniature ecosystem for thousands of koi and catfish.

Read More »

If you have access to a clean toilet at your workplace, you’ll probably appreciate it a lot more after reading this. We usually take common things like toilets for granted, without once thinking about how luck we are! Bus conductors in Bangkok, Thailand, don’t even get toilet breaks – they wear adult diapers instead, and are forced to answer nature’s call on the job.

That might sound gross, but it’s actually kind of sad. The story is the same in several parts of Thailand – blue collar workers aren’t even provided with basic amenities. Bus conductors have it the worst – without any work breaks to tend to their physiological needs, they have to wear adult diapers all day long . It’s no laughing matter – the diapers are actually making them ill.

One of those affected is Watcharee Viriya, a conductor who developed urinary tract infection because she spent several hours away from a restroom. So she started wearing diapers, which only made matters worse. “It was uncomfortable when I moved, especially when I urinated inside,” she said.

Read More »